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[German version] The populus in historical times describes the totality of adult, male Roman citizens, i.e. excluding women and children as well as foreigners and slaves. From the late Republic, populus ( Romanus) became a synonym for the res publica ( Romana), the Roman state (Cic. Rep. 1,25,39: est igitur ... res publica res populi), the populus being defined as the amalgamation of a group united in recognition of the law and of common purpose (v. [2. 315-318]). It was thus entirely possible that other populi might exist within the territory of the Roman state (v. Quirites; cf…

[German version] Archive of 53 (45 surviving) wooden tablets written in ink  from southern Numidia (between Capsa and Theveste), named after their publisher, E. Albertini: largely legal documents from the Vandal period (484-496 AD), predominantly sales of plots of land, providing important information on legal culture, language and above all the writing of the period. Galsterer, Hartmut (Bonn) Bibliography E. Albertini, Documents d'époque vandale découverts en Algérie, in: CRAI 1928, 301-303  Id., Actes de vente du Ve siècle trouvés dans la région de Tébessa (Algérie)…

[German version] Collegia made up of five ( quinque) men ( viri) below the magistrate level ( magistratus ); in Rome and Italy, they were frequently called ad hoc to settle public affairs. The only long-term office was the collegium of the quinqueviri cis Tiberim, who served as night watch on behalf of the tresviri [1] capitales and later of the aediles ; this function of the quinqueviri is also attested in Italian municipia . From AD 376, the five senators of the quinquevirale iudicium served as judges in capital charges against senators under the chairmanship of a praefectus urbi . …

Subunit of the Roman population ( populus ), arranged solely on a local basis according to residence from at least the Republican period. [German version] I. Meaning and oldest form Roman etymology already derived tribus from its recollection of tres ( 'three'), the number of the oldest tribus. According to Varro (Ling. 5,55), the Roman territory was at first divided into three parts, and the term tribus derived from the Titi(ens)es, Ramnes and Luceres ( ager Romanus primum divisus in partes tres a quo tribus appellata Titiensium, Ramnium, Lucerum 'the Roman land was first divided i…

[German version] Sigla, earlier notae, is the Latin name for abbreviations. Since the time of the Greeks, S. for names, titles, places etc. have been found on coins, conditioned by the small space available. In Greek inscriptions, on the other hand, S. are, at least in pre-Roman times,  extraordinarily rare. This is in stark  contrast to their extensive use amongst the Etruscans and above all the Romans, where some types of information - such as first names, tribus, former offices and set phrases fo…

[German version] Funerary inscriptions (FI) (now probably approaching a number of 200,000, cf. [3. 124,1]) emerged in the context of the cult of the dead with the purpose of marking the grave of a specific person so that sacrifices for the dead could be performed at the correct place. Furthermore, they soon took on the function of keeping alive the memory of this person and his achievements. They are located above ground at the burial site, or, in communal graves, on the urn holding the ashes, on the sarcophagus, or on the lid of the loculus (the burial niche). In addition to the inscrip…

[German version] I. Mesopotamia Income needed to finance tasks of state and general social functions (administration, the military, irrigation, prestige buildings, the court, cults, etc.) did not come from an all-embracing system of taxation levied on individuals, transactions or property, but on a general duty of service and labour on the part of subjects. Under the oikos economy (3rd millennium BC), the palace’s income came predominantly from the domestic operation of the institutional economies of temple and palace. In the tribute-based economy da…

( ius Latii). [German version] I. Before the dissolution of the Latin league Because of their common language and culture, Romans and Latins possessed largely identical legal systems. This fact was given precision in the foedus Cassianum . It included commercium and conubium , the right to the spoils in joint wars as well as the right to settle in other states of the Latin federation and to become citizens (basis of the exilium ). This legal status was also granted to newly founded Latin coloniae . Galsterer, Hartmut (Bonn) II. As a legal status in the Imperium Romanum [German version] A. To th…

[German version] Stone inscription, slightly damaged, of the 2nd half of the 6th cent. BC, discovered in 1977 at Satricum (Latium) beneath the Temple of Mater Matuta, which was constructed around 500 BC. The inscription, one of the earliest in the Latin language, is readily legible: - - -iei steterai Popliosio Valesiosio/suodales Mamartei (‘dedicated by the companions of Publius Valerius to Mars’). The incomplete beginning is probably to be read as [med h]ei (‘me here’), the object thus addressing the reader (see [1]; less likely Sal]iei, see [2], or Iun]ei, see [3]). The inscriptio…

[German version] Municipal law from the time of Domitian (end of the 1st cent. AD) for the Latin municipium Flavium Salpensanum, modern Facialcazar near Utrera (province of Seville) in southern Spain, of which a bronze tablet with chs. 21-29 was found together with the lex Malacitana (today in the Archaeological National Museum of Madrid) in 1861. The text is, with some differences, identical to the corresponding chs. in the lex Irnitana . Galsterer, Hartmut (Bonn) Bibliography CIL II 1963 ILS 6088 H. Freis, Histor. Inschr. zur röm. Kaiserzeit, 1984, no. 59 (German translation).

[German version] VI, which denote an object as a votive offering to a deity (or deities) by one or more persons, are among the oldest inscriptions; they may express gratitude for victory in a battle or for a merchant ship that has returned safely home. VI were often made because of a vow taken in a moment of danger, hence the formula VSLM, votum soluit libens merito ('he has honoured the vow of his own free will and according to custom'). The inscription medium was either a stone pedestal (such as for statues) or the dedicated object itself (for instance, helmets or chest ar…

[German version] ('Derivation'). In contrast to the Greek poleis and the independent local communities of pre-Roman Italy, a distinction existed in the Hellenistic kingdoms and thereafter in the Roman Empire between the sense of belonging to the greater political unit and the feeling of membership of the community in which one was born and lived. The former was mostly called politeía in Greek and civitas (B.) in Latin, and for the latter, primarily in Ptolemaic Egypt, the Greek expression ἡ ἰδία <κώμη> ( hē idía <kṓmē>, 'one's own village') was common. In Rome from the Imperial …

[German version] Conciliabulum (from concilium) in the legal meaning is an assembly place or, more often, just the venue ( locus ubi in concilium convenitur, Fest. p. 33) at which citizens gathered for the proclamation of laws, levying etc. The word describes a settlement with elementary self-government in the territory of one of the tribus rusticae. In the context of the ager Romanus we hear of per fora et conciliabula (Liv. 25,22,4; 39,14,7 etc.), which -- as in the lex Poetelia of 358 -- provides an excellent parallel to the nundinae in the city of Rome. In late Republican laws it…

[German version] A. Meaning of the word The etymological connection of Latin provincia (‘province’) with pro- vincere (‘defeat beforehand’) in Festus (253: “provinciae appellantur quod populus Romanus eas provicit, i.e. ante vicit”) is not plausible and probably based on a popular etymology. Likewise, Isidore’s explanation of provinciae as overseas territory ‘far from’ ( procul) Italy is no more convincing (Isid. Orig. 14,5,19: “procul positas regiones provincias appellaverunt”). The most probable link is with proto-Germanic * fro, ‘lord’ [1. 377 f.]. However, the meaning o…

[German version] Among the documents left behind by Augustus and read out in the Senate after his death in AD 14 was an index rerum a se gestarum (‘Report of Actions’), which was then published on two bronze tablets set up in front of the Mausoleum Augusti (Suet. Aug. 101,4; Cass. Dio 56,33 and R.Gest.div.Aug. prooem.; on the setting up of the tablets and their reconstruction see [8. 6 fig.]). A copy of this text with a Greek translation was attached to the temple of the imperial cult in Ancyra (modern Ankara), the capita…

[German version] Bronze tablet from Lugdunum (modern Lyon) with part of a speech by the emperor Claudius [III 1] in the Senate in which as censor in AD 47/8 he supports the wish of Gaulish nobles to be accepted into the Senate. Comparison of the original text (CIL XIII 1668 = ILS 212) with the version in Tacitus (Ann. 11,23-25) is revealing of the latter's way of working. Galsterer, Hartmut (Bonn) Bibliography H. Freis, Historische Inschriften zur römischen Kaiserzeit, 21994, no. 34 (German translation)  F. Vittinghoff, Zur Rede des Kaisers Claudius über die Aufnahme von 'Gall…

[German version] Rome's allies in Italy and, in exceptional cases, also communities and individuals outside Italy were already known as socii in antiquity. The socii in Italy were listed in the formula togatorum, a schedule which laid down the extent of the obligation to provide military contributions, as communities from which Rome was accustomed to require the provision of soldiers for the Roman army (' socii nominis(ve) Latini quibus <sc. Romani> ex formula milites in terra Italia imperare solent': lex agraria of 111 BC, FIRA 1, no. 8, ll. 21 and 50). The criterion for m…

[German version] [1] Governor of Pannonia and Moesia, proclaimed emperor rather than Gallienus in 260 AD Governor of Pannonia and Moesia, proclaimed emperor rather than  Gallienus in AD 260 by the Moesian legions after  Valerianus was captured by the Persians and the Sarmatians threatened to invade (S HA Tyr. Trig. 9,1; Aur. Vict. Caes. 33,2; Zon. 12,24, p. 143 D). Gallienus' cavalry leader  Aureolus defeated him at Mursa near Sirmium. I. lost his life while fleeing (Zon. loc. cit..; Aur. Vict. Caes. 32,2; Eutr. 9,8,1; Oros. 7,22,10; Chron. min. 1, 521,45 Mommsen). Franke, Thomas (Boch…

[German version] Flavian copy of the municipal law of the Caesarean colonia Iulia Genetiva in Urso, of which four almost complete tablets were found in 1870/71, and an additional 12 fragments were found in and near Osuna (province of Seville) in Southern Spain (today in the Archaeological National Museum of Madrid) in 1925. Originally the law probably comprised nine tablets with three or five columns of text each and just over 140 sections ( rubricae), of which 61-82, 91-106 and 123-134 are almost entirely extant and several others are preserved in fragments. The charter of the colony …

[German version] A. Etymologie and Definition It is possible that the Latin term municipes predates that of municipium. In the view of historians such as Varro (Ling. 5,179), the former is derived from munia (or respectively munera) capere, ‘the undertaking of duties’; the explanation ‘the receiving of gifts’ in [7. 26] has to be rejected in the same way as the ancient interpretation by Gellius (16,13,7) that municipium was to be seen as munus honorarium (‘honorary privilege’). Varro referred to obligations by Roman citizens such as military service and payment of taxes which the munici…